


what do you do when you're damned

by Gay_as_fuck



Series: Short Circuit Hearts (aka all electric type gym leaders are mentally ill) [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Recovery, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 00:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8349616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gay_as_fuck/pseuds/Gay_as_fuck
Summary: It's hard after the war.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i have no fucking clue why i wrote this,, how did this idiot become one of my comfort characters i may never know

After the war it was hard. 

The world had to come together and everyone who had fought in the war had to heal. Lt.Surge ended up staying in Kanto because he felt like he couldn't go home. There was nothing waiting for him back in the USA, and he'd heard that soldiers were getting booed back home instead of cheered on. He'd helped destroy such a wonderful land that he felt it was his duty to try to restore it.

Vermilion City didn't want him at first. Its people scorned him but he helped them anyway. He fought against them but that didn't change the fact that he wanted to help. It's strange to work alongside people he was fighting but that doesn't mean he doesn't get used to it. Slowly his Raichu is accepted by the others in the forest and he slowly stops being hated.

He never tries to make them understand why he fought against them. All his reasons were patriotic and stupid, he had been only 19 when he had signed up and so caught up in the idea of fighting evil that he never wondered if who he was fighting was evil or just different. When the Pokemon league is established to create peace between all the nations of the world Vermilion city has to pick it's gym leader.

Three years after the war ended and a dragon type trainer with red hair and a rather ridiculous cape comes around the people of the town say that he is the strongest. Lt.Surge was unlike any other gym leader in Kanto, sons and daughters of powerful trainers or native up and comers. He was an out of place American and he wondered if it was just some political move that gave him the position.

Either way people never really started liking him even when he was gym leader. He fought in the gym with the same Pokemon that had saved him during the war, the same ones that he had used to attack the people of Kanto. No one really hated him anymore, he had done so much and helped put Vermilion City on the map.

He's out of place, not the strongest or the quickest member of the Kanto gym leaders; just the most resourceful and cruel. It's hard to be alone with only his Pokemon. People who are willing to befriend the famously powerful and cruel electric type gym leader of Vermilion city are hard to come by.

It was still hard even as gym leader. He was terrified that things he had done during the war would catch up with him. During battles his mind snapped back to fights in the war not simple completion. If he recognized the Pokemon his opponent was using from a battle he almost always had nightmares that night. The only thing that kept him through were the idea that he needed this position and a bottle of sleeping pills.

After a few years of being the gym leader of Vermilion City, Lt. Surge received an invite from the Hoenn based department of the Pokemon league. It offered the chance to switch gyms with their electric type gym leader for a month or so. The letter explained that it's a way for the divide between countries to shrink, all Lt. Surge saw is a political move. Either way it seemed harmless enough and the idea of traveling was one of the things that made him sign up for the army in the first place.

He sent the letter back and soon enough he was staying in a gym that was very different from his own. Instead of a trashcan puzzle it was one with lightening switches. Instead of being surrounded by an area of rock types he was surrounded by water and the open calming air of Vermilion was so very different than the claustrophobic areas of Mauville.

The biggest difference from his home to Hoenn was what trainers were expecting. He had never met the man who usually ran the gym but he knew of him. Wattson was a jolly, trusting, and relaxed back old man with a friendly smile and a jovial tone to his voice. Lt. Surge was the opposite of that, he was cruel and paranoid. Trainers looked horrified when they learned that the old man had been replaced for a little while with a mean young military man.

He had a lot less nightmares in Hoenn. He never battled there during the war and most of the pokemon were from the region. He didn't have to remember the fear that at any second he would be burned alive, blown up, or shot down.

After a month of tricky new pokemon and tough battles Lt. Surge went back to Vermilion. He was glad to have had experienced such a different gym however he was just happy to be home. It took all he had not to kiss the floor of his gym when he realized that he thought of his city as home, not just a place to stay.

Wattson had been packing his bags when Surge had come in. The old man was humming something and the smile on his face widened when he heard the other gym leader approach. 

"Hello son! it's good to be home isn't it", Wattson started looking around the room. "I was just finishing packing my things before i left to catch my boat. I was wondering if you wanted to lend me a hand". 

Surge didn't have anything better to do so he moved in silence to the side of the old man and began folding a pile of clothing into compact rectangles. It's strange the skills and habits one picks up in the army. Surge can fold and stitch clothes better than anyone else in the city.

"You fought in the war didn't you?" Wattson inquired, taking the clothes his fellow gym leader folded and putting them into his bag. Surge's response was clipped and the first thing he would ever tell the old man.

"Yes." Wattson hummed slightly in acknowledgement before they slipped back into a peaceful silence. A few minutes later Wattson had another inquiry, which was a little to personal for Sarge's comfort.

"Why did you stay here in Kanto? You're clearly American so i can only guess you fought against Kanto in the war. Why did you stay then instead of go home?" 

Surge didn't answer for a moment. Partly because he didn't have an answer and partly because there were to many. He stayed because they needed help, but they didn't want his. He stayed because he'd only face ridicule at home, but he faced utter hatred here. He settled on the only answer that made sense.

"I want to help." it was simple, and he hoped it came off as selfless. That he had decided to help these people not just because he wanted to clear his own mind. He didn't tell Wattson that he stayed because it hurts less to be yelled at from the people who you hated than people you loved. He never could understand why Wattson gave the reply he did.

"You've done a good job with that" Wattson said and then in a softer tone "now it's time to take care of yourself son". Wattson's smile looked like forgiveness. That night when Surge went to go to sleep he saw that someone had refilled his sleeping pill prescription and left their number on a slip of paper next to the bottle.

It got easier now that he had someone to talk to. Surge hardly ever talked about the war or his personal problems but it helped having a friend. Wattson could annoy him endlessly but they talked about trainers and news. What ever was going on in the world each had something to say about it, usually the opposite opinion. 

Slowly but surely his life became more than his gym, his pokemon, and an old man. He somehow ended up befriending a child inventor, a fashion star, and a depressed engineer. They were the electric gym leaders, each with their own problems and their own beliefs and yet somehow they all ended up as friends.

It was hard after the war, but it got easier.


End file.
